Bringing in customers isn’t easy for anyone, but this is particularly true if you are a trucking business. This is why you should be embracing different forms of advertising and looking for jobs where you can, even if it brings you out of your comfort zone a little. To help with that, this article has some top tips on how you can bring in more customers for your trucking business, and help it grow faster and reach further than it might have before.
Look for work and list your services on directories:
Of course, you could just advertise your business (more on that in a moment) but your first and probably easiest step might be to look and add yourself to the directories of shipping services in your area. This can be relatively cheap and potentially easier to work with if your business is going through a rough patch.
You can look for ad-hoc jobs and bid for shipping work and driving work. It can be a good way to get your name out there too, especially if you deliver premium and high-quality service without needing to be prompted. Even if you are not struggling for work, these can be a quick and easy way to fill a free slot you have available.
Don’t forget about local advertising:
Advertising locally might be something that really works for you. Especially if you are in an area with high demand, such as a city or a small town that thrives off of local trade, or one where people don’t always ‘trust’ what they see advertised online.
As well as those directories mentioned above which might help gain access to jobs that are local in your area but might not see your advertisements, there are other methods you can use. For example, you might want to look into more traditional forms of advertising like flyers, posters, or radio advertising to help you get the coverage you need to bring in work consistently.
You should also be using social media:
Another method is using various social media platforms to market your business and bring in customers reasonably cheaply. You can post to your local Facebook pages about a ‘man with a van’ service to pick up some small jobs, or you could simply just use your posts to get the word out about your business.
Regardless of which path you choose, there is no way you should not be using social media to keep your business in the public eye so that when somebody does need a shipping service, they immediately think of you. This will be especially true if you keep posting pictures of yourself at the end of a job telling where you went to and from, and that you have another satisfied customer. Better still, ask your customer to post about it on their social media accounts and then you simply report it on yours. Customer endorsements like this go a long way to build your credibility and can be every bit as useful as a five-star rating on one of those reviews sites.
See if you can expand into different areas of the trucking industry:
Exploring different areas of the trucking industry might be a good idea if you are thinking about finding new customers. If you specialize in hauling antique furniture you might find a good amount of work in large furniture moving for those moving houses, as your care and experience would help you make your business more desirable.
If you usually specialize in moving horses, you might feel that it is worth moving into other areas for pets, such as dogs, cats, or birds. Your skills will overlap with some other areas of trucking quite significantly, which means that you will be able to dip in and out of these areas, and with enough experience, they will help you move on to other areas that you might enjoy working for a lot more than what you might currently do.
To wrap things up:
Running a trucking business is difficult and finding new customers can be a bit of a nightmare. This is why you should be seriously thinking about using a range of different methods to bring in a bigger and more diverse audience. This is easier said than done, so you should be looking into using social media, expanding your skills into other areas, looking into doing some local advertising, and working some potentially convenient jobs by using industry-specific directories.
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Nirmal Sarkar is a Biotechnologist from the city of Joy, Kolkata. He is the founder of this blog and covers a wide range of topics from Gadgets to Software to Latest Offers. You can get in touch with him via nirmal@hitricks.com
